Are Africans black and is our blood red?

When I first set aside to write this post, I was angry. Now I am not angry, I am just sad. Can I please ask you something? Are Africans black and is our blood red?

If they are, why do we treat them like they are not? Black lives matter, but only black lives in the West, right? Only black lives whose bloodshed we are not (yet) comfortable with. Because we have certainly grown comfortable to that of others. For some people, it seems like we think the colour of their blood has a nice tint. That’s the only reason I can fathom as to why we dismiss it when we see it poured out on the streets. When we see it in our face through social media. When we are told stories of it being spilled like a sacrifice on the ground. When did we become so desensitized to dead black bodies?

There seems to be a hierarchy to blackness that I noticed a while ago. Africans tend to be treated as the ‘black people’ of black people. I’m not quite sure when geographical location began to determine the worth of a person. Neither am I sure of when it became normal to gaslight a people for the state of their nation, when everybody is aware of who caused it to be in that state. When did the exploitation of the African state become something that is forgotten? When did the traumatic consequences of colonizing a people become erased from our memory? When did we forget who is truly responsible for this?

The dehumanisation of African lives is something that deeply grieves me. I am tired of it. I am tired. I’m tired of seeing the rights of my people being placed on a lower position than the rights of animals. But why should I expect any less when we are not seen as human beings in the first place? Because if we were seen as human beings, you would shiver at the news of our death in the same way you shiver at the news of the deaths in your local vicinity. If we were seen as human beings, our intellect would not be immediately presumed to be beneath yours, by virtue of where you live and how many opportunities you have been given in life. If we were seen as human beings, you would fight for our freedom even moreso than you fight for the ‘freedom’ of this dying planet. But why should I expect any less when we are not seen as human beings in the first place.

I thought our skin was black. I thought our blood bleeds red. I thought we all had the same hope for a better future. I thought we all wanted to empower one another and grow in unity. I thought we were cared for just as deeply as we care for you. I thought we mattered, as the world seemed to pretend when their reputation was at stake – shame on me for that one. I thought we were as human as everybody else.

But jokes on you, because we are. And we will rise. And you will see us rise in the same way you watched us fall. For I refuse to accept that the pain of the African nation is in vain. That isn’t merely a statement of hope – I am sure of it. The pain of Africa will not be in vain. Genocide will not prevail, and neither will the days of government-ordered massacres. Gender-based violence will not prevail, and neither will the days of being killed for fighting for your rights. Child exploitation will not prevail, and neither will the days of censorship and fear-mongered silence. Africa will rise. For the Lord will stand for her. And leaders shall arise from her youth. Her youth are our hope for the future and they will create the Africa that generations never got to see. For this generation will be relentless in our pursuit for dignity. I beseech you all to pray for the nation and her people. I beseech you to stand for her whenever you can and to not treat her as the neglected child in the orphanage. I beseech you to see her people as people and not as mere puppets that decrease your dopamine levels from time to time.

For our skin is black. Our blood is red. And we will rise. We will rise. We will rise.